Dozens of deaths and illnesses in the United States among individuals who either received or were in need of organ transplants were caused by a lack of oversight from the United Network of Organ Sharing (UNOS), according to a Senate Finance Committee investigation report released on Aug. 3.
Those complaints detailed a string of allegations, such as OPOs failing to complete critical, mandatory tests on patients for things like blood types, disease, and infection, and some patients having to have organs removed after the transplant.
The committee found that between January 2008 and September 2015, organs and tissues from 211 donors transmitted diseases, and 249 recipients developed donor-derived diseases.
Organs Left at Airports, Never Delivered
Elsewhere, the investigation found that 53 complaints had been submitted alleging “transportation failures” when life-saving organs were being delivered, including incidents in which the courier service requested by the OPO did not arrive in time to get the organs to their flight or transplant center.In other cases, the organs were simply never picked up or abandoned at airports, the committee said.
According to the committee, the U.S. transplant network is failing and jeopardizing the lives of Americans.
The committee’s investigation found that the OPTN is failing to provide adequate oversight of the nation’s 57 OPOs, resulting in fewer available organs for transplant.
It also found that the lack of oversight by UNOS “causes avoidable failures in organ procurement and transplantation resulting in risks to patient safety,” including testing procedure errors and transportation issues that resulted in life-saving organs being lost or destroyed in transit.
The committee also said that UNOS “lacks [the] technical expertise to modernize the OPTN IT system, resulting in [the] risk of system interruption or technical failure.”
The network that UNOS oversees is made up of nearly 400 members, including 252 transplant centers and 57 OPOs.
“This data illustrates the lethality of diseases contracted during a transplantation and the need for exacting scrutiny of such transmissions,” the committee wrote in a 60-page report.
‘Not a Partisan Issue’
In a statement on Aug. 3, Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said the investigation had uncovered failures that had cost lives.“Thousands of organs donated each year wind up discarded, including one in four kidneys,” Wyden said. “The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently issued new standards for OPO performance, and more than a third of OPOs are failing to meet them. Fixing what’s broken could substantially increase the supply of lifesaving organs available for transplant.”
The lawmaker noted that the Senate’s investigation remains ongoing.
“This is not a partisan subject,” Wyden said. “Everybody wants this system to work with as few errors as possible.”
A UNOS spokesperson told The Epoch Times: ”We were disappointed by the Senate Committee on Finance’s misunderstanding of the role UNOS has been assigned by the government within the nation’s organ donation and transplant system.”
“We remain dedicated to addressing these misperceptions and are looking forward to working with Congress to further improve. The U.S. organ donation and transplantation system is the most successful in the world and will soon exceed one million transplants in its history. Each represents a patient whose life was transformed. UNOS is proud of the community we have helped build and look forward to continuing working together to serve all patients who rely on us.”
The Epoch Times has contacted the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network for comment.
Inspector general audits and news reports at the time had suggested that thousands of organs that were available to patients who needed them were not being used. The reports and numerous audits also highlighted “questionable financial practices of some organ procurement organizations (OPOs),” lawmakers wrote at the time.
